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All of us bracket-obsessives should have listened to Kevin Schappell, who thought Florida Gulf Coast would beat Georgetown. Really, he did.

“One of the best teams I’ve seen this year,’’ Schappell said of the Eagles, who in three days went from directional school warmup band to coast-to-coast phenomenon. “Everybody can shoot. Everybody’s long and athletic.’’

Schappell figured if the referees didn’t allow the Hoyas to set up an Octagon from baseline to baseline, the Eagles could play fast and loose. The refs called it close, so the Eagles got space.

They scored 54 in the second half against the Hoyas, who never seemed to realize that they weren’t in the Big East, i.e. Tractor Pull World, anymore.

How does Schappell know this? What makes him so against-all-logic smart? What if we’d seen the matchup the way he did? Better: What if we could reshuffle our expertise and author a pristine Sweet 16 bracket today. Would we take Florida Gulf Coast over Florida on Friday?

For four years Schappell, a Loveland High and NKU grad, has been an assistant coach at Northern. For three years before that, he’d been a grad assistant at West Virginia. Schappell is familiar with both teams. He noted that FGCU beat Miami in the regular season, and outscored Duke in the second half of a 21-point loss.

“They did the same stuff against Georgetown and San Diego State we’d seen them do all year,’’ Schappell said.

The Eagles are the exception that burns the rule book. They aren’t just the first 15 seed to win two games in the Madness. They are the rightful heirs to the George Mason/VCU throne. Logical progression has taken quasi-amateur basketball from the D.C. suburbs to Dunk City, formerly known as Ft. Myers, Fla.

Pedigrees still own the Final Four. But their time in the penthouse isn’t so assured. Kids are impatient now. Either they leave big programs for the NBA (or overseas), or they leave big benches, to start at smaller profile schools. Before that, they switch AAU teams like they’re changing sneakers. “The transient nature of basketball now,’’ NKU head coach Dave Bezold explains. “Kids are used to just leaving.’’

As the wealth spreads and thins, more schools find it. This little revolution has the potential to pump life back into the college game. It could use it. A lack of scoring, a disregard for fundamentals and conferences that shift like a fault line are eating away at what once made the college game appealing.

You could not have watched FGCU Friday night, and not fallen in love. An audacious, late-game dunk by Chase Fieler, when most teams would run the clock and play keepaway? That was nice. Nicer is the outrageously telegenic face of Sherwood Brown, the senior walk-on guard who was the Atlantic Sun’s player of the year.

The coach Andy Enfield has a wife who once was a supermodel. On their first date, he took her to Taco Bell. This is fact. So is this: Early this decade, Enfield founded an Internet startup called TractManager. (Don’t ask me what it does. It really doesn’t matter.) The company is worth $100 million. He left it in 2006, to take a job as an assistant at Florida State. Wouldn’t everybody?

Back at NKU, Kevin Schappell’s texting fingers are working overtime. In one weekend, Schappell has gone from telling recruits, “We play in the conference Belmont used to win’’ to “we only lost to FGCU by seven the last time we played.’’

Before the Norse played the Eagles for the first time, Bezold and Schappell watched tape and said, “This is who we want to be.’’

The Norse were that sort of team – tall, long, athletic, good shooters – but at the Division II level. It will take them awhile to say the same in Division I. Six years, perhaps. That’s how long it took FGCU to get where it is today.

Recruiting is about selling a vision and a dream. It’s looking a hotshot high school kid in the eye and saying, “Play for us. We’ll win championships and make you better.’’ That’s a hard sell for a fledgling D-1 program such as Northern Kentucky. Owing to NCAA rules, players NKU signs now won’t be eligible to play in the Madness until they are seniors.

It was equally hard at Florida Gulf Coast. This is only the Eagles second season of tournament eligibility. Now look at ‘em.

Schappell has another new message to text recruits. He broke it out late Friday night, as Brown and friends covered the court in post-victory ecstasy: